"Is it better to be loved or feared?"I was recently asked this question as I was recounting a classic Anquetil/Poulidor battle with a close friend and, well, it got me thinking.

Photo by Roger Krieger. Courtesy of http://en.yellowkorner.com.

It was the 1964 Tour stage finish on the Puy de Dome. The two Frenchmen – one the master, one the underdog – had ridden shoulder to shoulder for ten kilometers on roads so steep it was difficult to walk on. Although by this time he had won the Tour of Spain, Milan - San Remoand the Fleche Wallone, Poulidor's achievements were paltry compared to the man from Normandy. Nevertheless, every dog has his day; this stage was to be Poulidor's moment.

To this day, Raymond Poulidor is the more popular of the two; the reason? Maybe we prefer an unpredictable story. Maybe we recognize ourselves in Poulidor, having more in common with a man who tries and often fails, rather than the character who, without apparent effort, succeeds almost every time. It was a sentiment that Eddy Merckx faced during his racing career, whereby his dominance in the peloton prompted a similar reaction on the part of the spectating public. Bernard Hinault added another wrinkle to the question of love versus fear with his own unique career.

As a rider and competitor, it’s advantageous to be feared for your talents; your job is easier if opponents feel intimidated by your prowess. In terms of competition, being feared wins almost every time; all the more so if there’s an element of respect mixed in. In “real” life, the life off the bike, most cycling champions seem to want to be loved as much as the rest of us. They have little problem turning their swords back into ploughshares and finding a way to give back. Here are just two examples. Bernard Hinault founded Souffles D’Espoir, a charity helping the struggle against cancer; he regularly leads charity rides to raise money for this cause. Eddy Merckx travels as an ambassador for the Damien the Leper Society which combats leprosy around the developing world; he also funds research in Pediatric Cardiology conducted in Belgium and other charity work. Is there ego involved? The desire to remain in the public eye, or perhaps the desire, as in all of us, to be seen doing good works? I would imagine so, to a lesser or greater degree.

As for me, I’ll take love every time. Love of family and friends, love of duty, doing the right thing wherever possible. Love of this understated, subtle craft that has entranced me for thirty odd years and at which I remain a willing student. Where do we get our impulses, our encouragements to pursue a path, or adopt a certain attitude to living? For me, it was my father; a man who seemed to never "work” a day in his life. Tom Jones was an experimental engineer who worked on adapting gas turbine engines for use in cars; a modest, beloved man who led by example and who was, truly, the hub around which all activity revolved. I absorbed from him the proposition that either you love what you do -- or you do something else. I digress.

Fear is easy. It doesn't take much. It is, in a sense, instinctual; a path from another time.Love takes work. It takes intention. It isn't necessarily the easiest way to live. That said, I can assure you it is, absolutely, the most profound, the most engaging, and the most rewarding.

I just finished William Fotheringham’s book, “Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling.” It’s a pull-no-punches look at the career of five time Tour de France winner Hinault. What a career it was!

Tour de France; eight starts, five victories!

Giro D’Italia; three starts, three victories!

Vuelta a Espana; two starts, two victories!

What makes it more remarkable was the relatively short span; he was a pro for eleven years, compared to thirteen years for Merckx, sixteen for Anquetil and twenty for Coppi. The date of his retirement would come as no surprise. Two years before, he announced he would take his leave on his thirty-second birthday. It didn’t surprise many that he did exactly as promised, although most believed he had many good years left in the tank. He had, however, witnessed great riders slowly lose their shiny feathers and fall back to earth, revealed as mere mortals at the end. For me, watching a rider command an ageing body by force of will and memory is bittersweet, tragic, and beautiful. I love him all the more for it. Monsieur Hinault differs with me on this point. That approach wasn’t for him. He would go out at a moment of his choosing, no one else's.

It’s worth contrasting Hinault with Raymond Poulidor, one of France’s most beloved riders and known as the Eternal Second.

The book paints a portrait of a hard-headed Breton with a reputation for making promises and standing by them. How, then, does one account for his seeming betrayal of Greg Lemond in the ’86 Tour? After all, he’d promised to return the favor after Lemond helped him in ’85.

I think it’s a question of instinct. On the back of Fotheringham’s book is a quotation from Hinault himself; “As long as I breathe, I attack” That’s the key, I reckon; he just couldn’t help himself. I agree with the author that it wasn’t even the attraction of a sixth Tour victory that motivated him. His instinct was to attack at all times, if opportunity arose; otherwise, it wasn’t really racing, was it?

His career was significant in another way. During the ’78 Tour, he was thrust to the front, accepting the role as spokesman in the riders strike at Valence D’Algen. He successfully voiced riders’ demands for more humane working conditions, such as limiting stages to only one per day. Up to this point, Tour organizers had thrown in a couple days when there would be two stages, thereby increasing the number of towns paying to have the race come through, or hold the stage finish. He demanded that riders be accorded a dignity and respect previously ungranted. Race organizers appeared to regard professional riders as beasts of burden, a view unchanged for eighty years.

If a rising tide lifts all boats, then his time on La Vie Claire was a blessing for future pro cyclists. After witnessing Hinault’s trouncing in the ’84 Tour, La Vie Claire owner Bernard Tapie hired Greg Lemond to be Hinault’s lieutenant for the ’85 Tour; the salary was viewed as astronomical at the time, but it altered forever the pay structure for professional cycling; the signing also helped to secure Hinault’s fifth Tour, to boot.

With regard to the Tour de France, he was truly the last “grand patron”. Certainly, every Tour has an alpha male, an enforcer, but Hinault’s toolkit was so much bigger; he had the drive to win and the anger to make it happen. He had the physical superiority and had perfected the art of psychological aggression, needling a competitor till he broke them. Moreover, his command lasted the entire season, be it Liege-Bastogne-Liege in April, The Tour in July, or the Tour of Lombardy in October. I can say with confidence, I will not see another Hinault in my time.

If you’re looking to unravel Hinault’s story, to find the flesh and blood inside the legend, William Fotheringham’s book is a great place to start.

The bicycle industry has always been sensitive to the wishes of its customers, but I think something has happened in the last thirty years that has made it even more sensitive to trends. In that time we’ve seen a huge number of new enthusiasts take to the roads (or trails) who came from other sports. They have joined our ranks because cycling is essentially kind to the body, especially the knees and hips; that’s not true of tennis or running, for example. The newcomers weren’t steeped in bicycle lore and didn’t necessarily have the same reverence for the past that the Old Timers have -- not necessarily a bad thing; cycling’s a big tent, after all.

Along with their money, they also brought an openness to new materials. The new materials were coming, for sure, but these guys had seen carbon or graphite in their tennis rackets or golf clubs, so why not in a bicycle frame? The Carbon Era was born.

Something interesting has happened in the last five to ten years. A pendulum swings both ways and we’ve seen a growing curiosity and appetite for componentry NOT made from carbon fiber. I share premises with Aaron Stinner, who heads Stinner Frameworks. He makes frames out of steel and titanium. Owing to demand, he struggles to keep the waiting list short. People have re-discovered the virtues of these materials.

It’s a similar story with bicycle rims.

I build quite a bit with carbon fiber. It’s light and comfortable; you can create a deep, aerodynamic rim profile at a weight that aluminum fails to match. However, I also construct many wheels featuring the new wave of wide alloy rims from companies such as Pacenti, Hed and Velocity. They concede to carbon in terms of aerodynamics, but have a big advantage when it comes to the internal width of the rim. This is the measurement that matters.

I’ll explain in a moment, but here’s a story first.

I have a set of test wheels built with Pacenti SL23 rims. The rims are 24.5mm wide and are stated to be 420 grams, but they were actually 409 grams. I weighed them before I built them up. I shod them with Schwalbe One tubeless 700x23 tires. These tires, labeled at 23mm, measured 26mm wide when installed! That’s because the internal width of this rim is 20.5 mm. It allows the tire to sit fat and wide, creating a generous contact patch that offers improved feedback and security to the rider.

What’s not to like? Improved cornering, descending and braking; plenty of comfort courtesy of the tubeless tire; no need to use a 25c tire to gain a bigger contact patch, so weight savings are generated. I’ve mounted these wheels on four of my customers’ bikes in the last month; each one has purchased a pair afterwards.

So, here’s a comparison with carbon rims. A carbon road rim 25mm wide does not come close to having the internal width of an alloy rim. You’re ending up with an internal width of 17mm for most of the carbon offerings out there -- the clinching edges of a carbon rim simply must be beefed up to hold the pressure. Owing to this narrower internal width, one is faced with a reduced contact patch and the reduction in all the good qualities associated with wider rims.

This is oversimplified, of course. I’m just a wheel-builder, after all. But hopefully I’ve illustrated that there’s no perfect material or design out there. We’re closer than we were, but we're still working towards it.

There’s much discussion these days on a subject that continues to be a technological gray area for many cyclists – tire size, width in particular. What’s the fastest size? Wide or skinny? A growing number of riders are adding their own anecdotal experience to the discussion. It largely corroborates what the wind tunnel technicians and armchair scientists have been proclaiming for years; wider tires are faster. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Wider tires offer less rolling resistance. They have a shorter contact patch resulting in less hysteretic loss. That’s a fancy way of saying that they roll over bumps better without being slowed by the impact, allowing you to go faster over less than perfect surfaces. I don’t know of any perfect surface other than a wooden velodrome track.

2.Despite their extra size, 25c tires are at least as aerodynamic as a skinnier tire when mounted on the correct rim.

3. Wider tires are more comfortable. We should not forget that comfort is a factor of efficiency.

Jobst Brant, circa 1985-ish

Current designs are backed up by quantifiable data proving their efficacy, but I do shake my head and chuckle when I think of how it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I remember magazine adverts from Avocet - featuring Jobst Brandt, no less – showing Brandt leaning into a fast corner on 19c tires! We mature riders cut our teeth on Specialized Turbo 19c and 20c clinchers. We all thought that narrower was faster; it was intuitive, wasn’t it? Well, perhaps not.

A patent co-owned by Hed and Zipp dating back to the mid 90’s let the cat out of the bag; wider tires mounted on wider rims produced better airflow and were thus more aerodynamic. It should be stated, however, that “wide” rims in ’95 were not the 25-27mm wide examples we see now, but the principle was proved nonetheless. For optimum performance, a wider tire mounted on a wide rim offers less rolling resistance and gives the rider greater feedback, especially when cornering. The small increase in weight is easily mitigated the advantages of speed, comfort and control that the design offers. I see just one problem for some riders seeking this improvement; their frames don’t have enough clearance on the fork, chain stay, or both.

Ahh, Progress…….

If you'd like to investigate all manner of questions regarding tires, rims and rolling resistance, I recommend two places to begin your self-education. My friend Tom Anhalt runs bikeblather.blogspot.com; he has listed exhaustive data on a large variety of tires. Another place to seek enlightenment is Jan Heine’s blog, Off the Beaten Path. It’s good for lots of stuff.

I recently constructed a pair of wheels featuring a pair of 28 hole Gipiemme hubs that had sat in their box for thirty years. My customer was looking for a wheel set that would complement the appearance of a classic Moser that he had purchased. The bike will be ridden at the 2016 California edition of the Eroica, in Paso Robles; no doubt it will be ridden before, as well.

My customer has a fondness for the classic parts he couldn’t afford as a kid, but appreciates the progress in componentry that has been bestowed on us all. So, what rims to go with?

We wanted silver, just like Merckx, Ocana and Anquetil would have used; we wanted box section, like the old Mavic MA2s, not the aero designs prevalent in the 90s and later. We wanted wide because they work better in a multitude of ways, so we opted for the H Plus Son TB14 in silver. 23mm wide? Check. Welded seam, machined brake surface, double eyelets, elegant badge on the valve hole? Check’em all. They ended up looking really crisp, a beautiful mix of retro style and efficiency.

Building these wheels was not only a trip down memory lane for me, but also an occasion for realizing how much we stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, bikes handle better, stop better and climb better because of innumerable talented, passionate engineers and artists who wouldn’t stop looking for small subtle improvements. I feel blessed by their efforts.